Since it's wintertime and the water is too cold for me I today spent some time to replace the breathinghose O-rings. I am the second owner of my yellow widow maker and I don't think the O-rings has ever been replaced since the manufacturing date (Sept. 2001). I knew the fittings could be tricky to loosen but it's was worse than that, it was impossible!
I tested the hot-water-trick in this thread and that helped me with one fitting only, the others refused to give up.
After one blister on my left hand I was quiet pissed off and realized that I needed a proper tool for the task. After searching high and low I finally found a proper tool, a broomstick!
The broomstick fitted nicely in the hole and gave me a chance to get a good grip of the hose so I could loosen the ring. The first fitting was really easy and the others took less than 30 seconds each. Since a picture says more than 1000 words I enclose one as well.
// Blomman